Centre fulfils Rahul Gandhi’s wish
Extends job guarantee scheme
Vibha Sharma
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 1
Keeping an eye on the coming general elections, the government today extended the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) to all districts of the country and also announced the setting up of an ombudsman at central, state and district levels to monitor the process and grievances.

At the launch of the scheme in 2006, it was decided that then NREGA would be extended to all districts within five years. However, with an eye on the elections and as per wishes of Rahul Gandhi the UPA government decided to extend the scheme to the entire country within three years itself. Incidentally, Rahul Gandhi had recently met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh urging him to extend the implementation of the NREGA to all rural areas in the country.

Announcing the extension of the NREGA to remaining 274 districts of the country, union rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh said today that states had been asked to conduct social audit of the scheme. Besides, an independent agency set up outside the government would monitor system failures like corruption and misuse of funds.

The NREGA was enacted with the aim to providing legal guarantee for 100 days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do unskilled manual work at statutory minimum wage. It commenced on February 2, 2006, in 200 districts and was extended to 130 additional districts from April1 2007. From today onwards, all remaining 274 districts come under the Act.

The minister said in order to strengthen the implementation of the NREGA the government had taken a number of steps and the plan of action for 2008-2009, including transparency in the payment of wages through workers accounts in banks and post offices. The Centre had issued instructions to state governments to coordinate with the Department of Posts and ensure that the accounts of the NREGA workers were opened in banks and post offices for the payment of wages.

As far as performance under the ambitious scheme goes, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand and Karnataka are among the best performing states while states like Bihar and West Bengal are at the other end of the spectrum.

The minister said in the current financial year up to February 2008, 3.10 crore households demanded employment against which work was provided to 3.08 crore households. A total of 121.64 crore man-days were generated out of which the share of SCs was 32.89 (27.04 pc), STs 36.50 (30 pc), women 51.24 (42.13 pc) and others accounted for 52.25 (42.95 pc).

During the year person days of employment provided to a family was 40 days. Rajasthan topped with 72 days, followed by Madhya Pradesh 57.78 days, Tamil Nadu 57.80 days, Andhra Pradesh 39.64 days, Maharashtra 41.55 days and West Bengal 18 days.

The government may be in a self-congratulatory mode on the NREGA but a CSE study done on the eve of the expansion of the scheme to the entire country says the scheme has a huge potential for regenerating village economy, but only if its focus remains on the creation of productive assets.

“The NREGA has a huge potential for regenerating village economy, but only if its focus remains on the creation of productive assets,” says the study.